Sainsbury's and Channel 4 on the hunt for data scientists

Expertise in Hive and Spark, and a BSc in a quantitative discipline? A well-paid job beckons...

Supermarket chain Sainsbury's is one of the companies currently on the hunt for a data scientist to join its business.

The successful candidate will have the opportunity to work across the business supporting marketing, commercial, agriculture, finance and HR, as well as the non-food and banking departments of the company.

Sainsbury's said that it wanted someone who could solve complex retail problems with a modern data-science stack, work in a collaborative environment, support digital experience, DevOps and development teams, and utilise agile delivery with a focus on meeting business needs and driving value.

Candidates will need expertise in tools like SAS, R, Python, SQL, NoSQL, Linux, Power BI, D3 and more, as well as knowledge of AWS, Spark, MapReduce, Hive, Impala, and more. They will need a relevant Bachelors or MSc degree and, ideally, some experience of working in a retail environment.

Sainsbury's says that it wants someone with "inspirational thinking", with the ability to influence colleagues and customers alike, as well as "brilliant" communication skills to turn complex analytics into compelling stories for non-technical audiences.

The data scientist will be based in London on a permanent, full-time contract. Details of the salary are not disclosed.

Applicants have until 31 May to apply.

Meanwhile, Channel 4 is looking for a junior data scientist. The organisation said it was looking for an analytically minded individual with a strong background (either from university or a previous job) in applying statistical techniques and providing actionable insight from massive amounts of data.

The successful candidate will be helping in the development, building and delivery of the necessary statistical models and data-driven products in line with the insight roadmap, enabling the business to gain a better understanding of its viewers.

The junior data scientist will run queries in Spark and HiveQL, assist in data cleansing and preparation for further analysis, leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP), machine learning or statistical techniques.

He or she will also have a BSc in statistics, mathematics, engineering, operations research, computer science or another quantitative discipline, such as political science or econometrics. The successful candidate will have experience in at least one statistical programming platform or language.

Channel 4's current stack includes Spark, Python, R and Hadoop, but the organisation said it is "very flexible" on what language applicants have used.

However, applicants must have experience in predictive analytics, including machine learning techniques, as well as classical statistical modelling, and understand the value of software development.

Channel 4 has a partnership with University College London so the chosen candidate will have the opportunity to audit some courses in machine learning and statistics. He or she will be mentored by Channel 4's team of senior data scientists and work closely with its PhD students.

The salary for the role has not been disclosed. The junior data scientist will be based in London on a full-time contract. The closing date for applications is at midnight.

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